Charging For Online Content

First, the phones stopped ringing in the paper's circulation department. Fewer subscribers were canceling home delivery of the paper, something they had been doing in droves when they knew they could get the same product for free at NewportDailyNews.com. "Those calls have stopped," William F. Lucey III, assistant publisher and general manager, told NEWSWEEK.

But something even stranger happened: after the Web site put up a pay wall for nearly all its content, readers would brave driving rainstorms to go out and buy the newspaper. Since then, newsstand sales of the Newport Daily News have jumped by 200 copies a day. For a paper with a daily circulation of 13,000, that's a significant gain, especially since, in an era in which most papers are seeing steep declines in readership, even holding steady is a success; an increase is a triumph. "The fact that weather hasn't been fantastic makes me believe that the pay wall has had an effect," Lucey says. "We think that more people are buying the paper now that they can't get it for free online."

The rest of the article is interesting and details some of the other issues print is facing as the web offers more and more content but harder business models to support the staff and investment to bring that content alive.  At Luce Performance Group we have watched Castanet.net in Kelowna, British Columbia.  In a post August 20th we detailed how they have become a "Hyperlocal Business Model Found At Castanet.Net".  ...

"They are set to do $2 Million in sales this year in a market smaller than 200,000 in the Regional District of Central Okanagan surrounding Kelowna, British Columbia..  They sell their internet property like we consult our broadcast properties to sell; Customer Marketing Profiles, Return On Interactive Investment, Spec Banner Ads, Proposals, Tracking, and Reporting."

The business model they have developed involves offering all of their news content free, offering free classifieds (with paid upgrades or add-ons), display advertising campaigns on a weekly or monthly basis, great production, a tracking system that details each client's return on the interactive investment, and customer service that includes recapping the return and optomizing the creative elements to help the client bring more customers through the door.  They don't have a "print" edition and that model has developed over the years to be very effective in the community.  Could part of that be that they never had a print element?

The ongoing developments of various business models will be determined by what properties want the end result to be, if you want to rid yourself of the overhead of developing a "print" product and move it to the web, you will find a way to make that work under a business model that may not include the same personnel that it takes to do a "print" publication. If you want to drive people back to the print edition, you may try what The Newport Daily News has done and push people back to the print edition. 

In my opinion, the Castanet.net model makes the most sense regarding the changing media habits of the generations that marketers key into.  With 30% or more of daily media time spent online, it makes sense for online News and Community Web Portals to become the new source of information in your community.  Is there a hole in the market you can fill online?  With print and online? With daily e-mail news and online? Why have others not filled the hole you see?  Could it be lack of vision and a profitable business model to emulate?  Look to Castanet and the Newport Daily News as examples of working business models.  Each market has it's own dynamics, try to determine what the dynamics of your market are and develop a model that may be a hybrid of several to make it work for you.